Retailer GAME introduces pre-orders on used games

UK retailer GAME is trialling a new system that lets frugal gamers get their hands
on cheap, pre-owned games, just a week after they come
out.

Normally, you can waltz into your local game shop a few days
after release and potentially pick up a recent game from the
pre-owned rack at a slight discount. But now, GAME is making it
even easier by offering guaranteed, money-down pre-orders for used
versions of upcoming titles. It will save gamers around £5 if they
can wait seven days.

For example, Bioware's upcoming RPG epic Dragon Age
II will run you £39 when it launches on 11 March, but wait until 18 March and
you can get a used copy for just £34. Other games in the trial include Crysis 2, Homefront, Shift 2: Unleashed and Tiger Woods PGA Tour
12.

Pre-owned sales are big business for high street retailers.
The profit margins are razor thin on games so shops like HMV and
GAME make a pittance when passing on a new release to customers.
But if they can buy your old game for £20 and sell it on as
pre-owned for £30, the retailers are quids in.

It's not just the high street boutiques, either. You can now
trade in games while doing your weekly shopping at Tesco or put
your completed games in a jiffy bag and whizz them off to
Amazon.

And by pricing pre-owned games well below RRP, customers are
taking the bait. US retailer GameStop announced that more than 50 percent of its 2010 Q3 earnings
came from used game sales. "We don't like being in the used games
business," admitted GameStop Nordic's managing director Niall
Lawlor during a conference panel, "but we have to be there. We
would have to exit the games business otherwise."

A given game's publisher, however, has lost a sale when you
buy pre-owned, and they're not happy about it. Andrew Oliver from
Blitz Games, the studio behind Yoostar 2, toldDevelop that he believes used games are a bigger
threat than piracy. "Money going back up the chain is a fraction of
what it was only a few years ago," he said.

By making pre-owned sales even easier and more prevalent --
by giving an exact price and length of time to wait, in this case
-- GAME's new pre-order service will be just another obstacle in
the fight against pre-owned sales.

To try and combat trade-ins, publishers have started
instating services that makes new games more alluring than used
ones. In 2010's Alan Wake, for example, every new copy was bundled
with a coupon code to unlock the first piece of downloadable
content for free. If you pirated, rented or bought the game
pre-owned, you'd have to cough up around £7 to get the same DLC.
EA's used similar tactics in Mass Effect 2 and Need for Speed: Hot
Pursuit.

Do you trade-in games, or buy them pre-owned? And if so, do
you worry that your actions could be hurting the games industry?
Let us know in the comments below.